Month: April 2017

Goals are the results, outcome, and achievement of a person, organization, a team and even a country. As a person, goals gives us the direction to move forward to reach life fulfillment. Goals are the oxygen of achievement. Here are the 5 great reasons why we need to set goals!

1. Goals reinforce your WHY?

In my previous post, I talked about the Golden Circle by Simon Sinek. The goal will help to remind you of your why. Goals are the WHAT component of the Golden Circle. Goals help to direct your actions to compliment with your WHY. Your Why is the very purpose you exist.Your action of achieving your goal will fuel your life purpose.

2. Goals unlocked your potential!

Goals will bring out the very best that is in you, enabling you to realize full potential! The moment you write down your goal, you are giving yourself permission to explore your unknown capabilities. In other words, you are about to jump. Believe me, every successful man jumps into the unknown. They will hit something and get hurt. That is what we call failure. But, when you land on the ground you will discover your locked potential

3. Goals strengthen your clarity, focus, and concentration

Clarity, focus, and concentration are known as the big three of superior thinking. The goal that you desire needs to be very clear until you can close your eye and able to visualize it! In another aspect, you need to have clarity about who you are. You need to be clear on your strength, weakness, unique talents, and ability. Then, you must focus single-mindedly on one thing at a time, without distraction and diversion. Once you decided who you want to be, you must develop the discipline to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing at a time. You have to stay with it until it is 100% done! Goals are the best medicine for “fuzzy mindset.” Goal enable you to develop the qualities of clarity, focus, and concentration!

If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. Zig Ziglar

4. Goals track your progress.

Goals must have a deadline. Having goals without a deadline is similar to a book without the final chapter. Goals help you to track your progress because you always have a fixed finishing line. It is a yardstick or a benchmark to compare with. With a tracked progress, you are allowing yourself to do something else in a day. Do you know the number one goal globally, is to lose weight? Let us say, in January your weight is 100kg this year. Your goal is to be 70kg by the end of the year. You need to lose 30kg in that one year! The number looks big, but you can break it down to mini goal. You mini goal is to lose 2.5kg in a month! If you`re not meeting the monthly target, you can adjust your workout and even your diet. This is the beauty of having a tracked goal, you can adjust without losing sight of the ultimate aim.

The person without goals makes no progress on even the smoothest road. The person with clear goals makes rapid progress on even the roughest road. Thomas Carlye

5. Goals drive your inspiration and motivation!

The foundation of inspiration and motivation are from your goals. By setting goals, it gives you power, purpose, and direction to your life. It provides you with a solid target to aim and 100% focus. Once you grab on hold on your goal, a sense of satisfaction and joy surge through your body. The feeling of beating all obstacles are paid off. That is the feeling that fuel your inspiration and motivation to drive your life to success.

In life, you can either work to achieve your own goals or work to achieve the goals of someone else. The next post I will cover in planning a goal! A goal without a plan is just a wish!

Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it’s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.Anthony Robbins

I would love to hear your thoughts on why we need to set goals! Feel free to leave your comments below.

1. CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE

People who succeed develop an attitude of tenacity. They refuse to quit, and they are determined not to let failure defeat them. If you desire to fulfill your dreams, achieve your goals, and live life to the fullest, that is the kind of attitude you need to cultivate. Take responsibility for your failure and learn from it. You need to choose to respond, not react. Look at failure as a lesson, not a person.

2. CHANGE YOUR WORD

One of the two saddest words in the vocabulary are “if only.” People who get trapped in their whole lives saying “if only.” If only I had tried harder if only I am smarter if only I am rich and if only I am stronger. These words create a victim mindset. To be an achiever, your word needs to change. Substitute it with “next time.” Next time I will try harder, next time I will be smarter, next time I will be rich, and next time I will be stronger. Remember, failure is not a failure if you do better next time.

Let us look at another perspective, you can program your mind to look at failure as learning, growth, and opportunity. It may look like a small difference. However, it can make a big difference. With the right word, it can change your thought process. Start with questions, Why does this learning experience essential for my growth? How can I look at this as an opportunity? What can I learn from this experience so that I can do better next time?

3. LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES

Henry Ford stated, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” For you to do that, you need to learn from your mistake first. From my experience working as an engineer, I have learned more from my failures than my success. I need to take the responsibility and accountability for my mistake. That way, it is my obligation to learn and execute a better solution. With the right choice of attitude, you will never lose, but you will learn.

Robert Kiyosaki

Something you win and something you learn!

4. LOOK AT FAILURE AS GROWTH

Micheal Jordon was one of the top basketball players of his era. He won 6 NBA championship, and he was awarded six times MVP of the NBA final. We can see his success, and his name became a brand, JORDAN. However, Micheal Jordan stated, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” What we do not see was his failure. If he gives up, the brand Jordan will never be born.

The great understand the role failure plays in achievement. That is the truth, but not many people have the tolerance to accept that. The inventor, Thomas Edison said, “I’m not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded in another step forward.” Whether it is millions of experiments that do not work or millions of falls from a balance beam, the milestones on the road to success are always the failure. Look at failure as growth! The farther you go, the more failure you experience.

Over time, you have to learn to see failure as a friend and a companion of success. If you`re not failing, then you probably are not A moving forward. You are just doing something safe and comfortable. Then, you will never grow!

5. LAUGH ABOUT IT

They say laughter is the best medicine. It works well when you laugh of your failure. Laughter can change your state of mind into solution mode. Followed by the right question, Why? How? And What? There is no a person alive who would not benefit from a good laugh, especially when you`re doing something foolish. Remember, when you take your mistake too seriously, then everything seems to be life-and-death. If you have that mindset, it will drain you and sabotage you from your potential. The way to solve that is to laugh no matter how bad things get!

6. KEEP YOUR PERSPECTIVE RIGHT!

If you failed, you could be upset for a day. But today`s failure will not guarantee tomorrow`s failure. Learn and work your weakness. Same goes for success; you can celebrate for a day. But today`s success will not guarantee tomorrow`s success. Learn and improve your strength. Remember, failure is just like success. It is a day to day process. Failure is not a one-time event. It is how you respond to life along the way. The fact is, you will make mistakes. However, you cannot conclude that you are a failure until you breathe your last. Now! Right now! You are still in the process. As long you are breathing, there is a still time to turn things around!

7. NEVER GIVE UP!!

Failure does not mean you will never succeed. It just means it will take longer. John Wayne line in the movie The Train Robber said, “You`re going to spend the rest of your life getting up more time than you`re knocked down, so you better start getting used to it.” That is what success is about! Japanese Proverb stated, “Fall seven times and stand up eight.” If you give up, you will never know. But if you give up you will never get there at all. All you need to start all again when you fall.

8. PREPARE A RECOVERY PLAN!

Thomas J. Watson Sr. the founder of IBM, was once asked how to succeed faster. He replied, ” If you want to succeed faster, you must double your rate of failure. Success lies on the far side of failure” The most crucial part is to respond. Do not ever react! Prepare a recovery plan. The formula always has been “Try, try again and then try again something else.” An excellent way to start is starting with the right questions. The great “What if”

Let’s say you are organizing events outdoors. You can ask yourself, “What if it rains?” The next question is, “What is my backup plan?” Should I prepare a tent? Let`s looks at bigger risks. You just bought a house which cost over 500,000USD. The question you can ask yourself, “What if I am unable to pay the monthly installment?” The next question is “How can I afford the monthly installments?” Do I need to keep an eye on my budget spending? What other ways can I earn income besides my day job? How can I increase my salary? What do I need to get in the company?

Always start with a question to challenge yourself on what could go wrong in your particular tasks, works, projects, assignment and the list goes on. Start with the “What if?” Now, when it happens! Do not run! Take the accountability and immediately take action on your recovery plan. Do not afraid to seek help!

Most of the time, the impact of a recovery plan that leads you to success is sweeter compared to a smooth plan that leads you to success.

Success is not an accident. Failure is also not an accident. Take that jump of your life and follow these steps to bounce back!

The content was taken from the Difference Maker, written by John C. Maxwell and with a spice of my thought. Definitely, a book to read and highly recommended for those who want to learn to manage their attitude.

They are two type of people in the world; the “CAN” and “CAN`T.” The first type of people can achieve anything. They have the positive mindset and the CAN-do attitude. The second type of people will fail everything. They did not even start, they just say it cannot be done. They see failure in every result. If you are able to handle failure well, you can keep yourself away from the CANNOT-do attitude.

Henry Ford;

If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.

The question is, WHY do people have the CANNOT-do attitude? John C. Maxwell breaks it down to four main reasons;

1. They expect to fail!

Usually, the people who keep failing are the ones who expect to fail. Even before they begin a task, they already see the failure instead of success first. They are like the pessimist whose with a name tag on, “I expected this to fail”. Their mindset was programmed to fail.

The Law of Human Behaviour

Sooner or later We will get what we expect!

2. They take failure personally!

You cannot perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself. Everybody fails! But if they still continue to fail, they will expect to fail. In the end, they will label themselves as a failure. You need to understand there is a big difference between failing and being a failure.

If you want to maintain a good attitude and be successful, you cannot take your failure or even your success personally. Failure is not so bad if it does not attack the heart. Success is all right if it does not go to the head. A failure is just an event. Guess what, same goes for success. It is not a person. As we get older, gain more experience and gain more confident, you will realise that your failures are temporary and your successes do not define you completely as well.

3. They afraid to jump!

You have to jump to start living! If you don’t jump, you’re just existing.

To live life, you need to take some degree of risk! The fear of failure can sabotage a person. The fear of failure is deadweight of your potential. They will miss the great opportunity to win and achieve greatness!

Those who always jump first will get out on the edge of the comfort zone. That is the only way you will seize the opportunity. If you want to grow, you must embrace pain. If you want to unlock your potential, you will need to take chances and jump! If you do not make that jump, you just existing in life! You choose!

4. They let failure define them!

Losing and winning are given event in life. Just because you lose today, it will NOT guarantee that you will lose tomorrow. But if you quit, it will guarantee that you will lose tomorrow! Whatever you do, do not every quite! However, you must prepare yourselves for failure. You should be ready to bounce back when it occur. That is what make the success worth it! Success without adversity is not a success.

Steve Davis

It may not be your fault for being down, but it is your fault for not getting up!

The content was taken from the Difference Maker, written by John C. Maxwell and with a spice of my thought. Definitely, a book to read and highly recommended for those who want to learn to manage their attitude. My next post I will cover how can you prepare yourself to face failure! Follow my blog for more inspiration!

In my previous post, I wrote about The 5 Destructive Effect of Fear! Please do check it out to understand the impact of letting your fear to control you. Now I am going to cover the recovery side of fear. Here are the 7 great steps to overcome fear!

1. Admit your Fears

You cannot overcome fear unless you first need to acknowledge them. What you should do, you need to make a list of your fear. If you are unable to do so, you may be still running from those feeling. Hence, you need to observe of your feeling. If your heart race for no reason, you feel paralysed into inaction and you feel nervous for no reason. These are the response due to fear. Do not overthink, write your fear down first! That is the first step.

2. Determine the Source of your Fears

James Thurber

All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running away from and to and why.

Fear also is known as False Expectations Appear Real. Most people`s fear is based not on facts, but on feeling. You need to look beyond the irrational feeling you may possess and discover the expectation that lies beneath them. Guess what, it does not exist! It is an imagination that created by the mind!

3. Acknowledge that fears limit you

J.H Newman.

Fear not that your life will come to an end but that it will never have a beginning.

That is what can happen if you let fear take over your life. Honestly, most of our fear are baseless. The rest are simple things we must learn to live with it. There are no guarantees in life. People look for things to protect them. It could be alarms, umbrellas, smartphone, GPS system, and cars with ABS system. Here is the fact, life is dangerous, damaging your health, and will eventually kill you. So you might as well live life to the fullest. Take that risk to overcome that fear!

4. Accept that Fear is the price of Growth

Steve Harvey

Believe it or not, every successful person in this world has jumped!

One of the secrets of success is not letting what you cannot interfere with what you can do. A strong proponent of positive thinking, Stone said that the secret to making sales was going where you do not want to go and doing what you do not want to do. You need to take that leap into the fear. Most importantly, do not let your fear keep you from taking small steps in your development. You never know where they might lead. It may unlock your potential within you.

5. Change fear into desire

Cus D’Amato

The hero and the coward both feel exactly the same fear, only the hero confronts his fear and converts into fire.

Every negative emotion we feel can be converted into something positive to help us to grow in life.

Fear of poverty? Convert it to a positive work ethic.

Fear of greediness? Convert it to generosity.

Fear of rejection? Convert it to acceptance.

Fear of insignificance? Convert it to service of others.

People can turn their life around them by takings the very thing that once created fear and using the energy to do something positive and worthwhile. It is an always a choice to make to change your decision for a better option.

6. Focus on Things You can Control

There are always things that you cannot control in life. Guess what, there is no good reason to worry about those things. It can be very energy draining.

Harold Stephens.

There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.

The right question to asked, What can I do to be a Problem Solver? Always focus on the things that you can control. To do that, there are 2 things. First is the attitude. As you interact with people, you cannot control their action. No matter how much you like it. But you can control your attitude. Boys react, men respond. The second part of it is your calendar. You may not be able to control today, but you can do your best to plan the time you have. Most people who fear the future so so because they do not prepare for it.

7. Feed the Good and Starve the Bad!

It is a battle between FEAR and FAITH. Either one will arise within you. It is your choice to choose which one will triumph. These emotions will always be presents in you. The emotion you continue to feed is the one that will control your life. You cannot expect fear to simply disappear. If you continue to focus on your fears and entertain them, they will increase. The way to handle it is to starve them. Do not give your fears any of your time or energy. Do not feed them with gossip or negatives news. It can be very draining.

What you should do? Focus on your faith! Feed it with positive food. The more energy and time you give it. It will become stronger. At any point in time, if there is a spark of fear. Take action by go ahead and do it! By doing so, you are reprogramming your attitude. When there is fear, it means “GO” instead of “STOP”. When there is fear, it means “FIGHT HARDER” instead of “GIVE UP”.

Keep in mind, no matter how strong a hold fear may try to take on you, it can be overcome. Fear is just in mind and attitude can make a major difference. Most importantly, do the work and take action!

If you are not in control of your fear, the fear are in control of you!

BONUS STEP;

ACCOUNTABILITY BUDDY

Get an accountability buddy to help you to beat that fear! He or She must not be afraid of the fear that you are facing. If you are afraid of heights, your buddy must not be afraid of heights. If you are afraid of thunder, your buddy must not be afraid of thunder as well. Your buddy can help you to grow to faced fear. Your buddy can show you that it is alright to face it and the fear does not exist.

The content was taken from the Difference Maker, written by John C. Maxwell and with a spice of my thought. Definitely, a book to read and highly recommended for those who want to learn to manage their attitude.

“What is your passion? What do you like to do? You must find it and once you found it. You must work on it!”

That was the typical advice given my most successful people. I have to admit that is what I advise to other people as well. However, passion is an intense emotion, a compelling enthusiasm or desire for something. That is pretty much what you do. Over time, it becomes fuzzy and able dies off. The focus is so much on the WHAT and HOW. I realized it does not hit the core belief of doing things! In other words, the foundation is not strong enough to be persistence in building passion.

Then, I came across Simon Sinek TED Talk titled Start with WHY. The message conveyed by Simon very profound and deep as it connects directly to my core belief. I bought his first book, Start with Why to understand his concept of The Why. He talks about the naturally occurring pattern, a way of thinking, communication, and action that some leaders ability to inspire those around them. It helps people to focus on and amplify the passion in their work. When I said work, it does not mean 8 am to 5 pm day job only. It can be anything! Anything that requires work to make it happen. The WHY is what makes your work sustain day by day without fail. It differentiates between manipulation and inspiration.

Simon Sinek developed a simple, yet profound concept known as the GOLDEN CIRCLE. Deep within the circle, it begins with the WHY. Then, followed by the HOW and finally the WHAT as shown in the following picture.

The Golden Circle from Start with Why

Typically, everyone is able to explain the WHAT and the HOW? Not many people able to articulate the WHY? Let’s break it down!

The What

Almost every person knows What they do. This is your job title, function, the products you sell, and services that you provide.

The How

Some people know How they do it. These are the things you do that make you unique. It makes you different and unique among your peers.

The Why

Very few people know WHY they do what they do. Most people think they work because of money. But it is not about the money, money is the result. However, the Why is a purpose, cause, and belief. It is bigger than what we are. It acts as an anchor of your passion. Your Why is the very purpose you exist.

The analogy Simon used was the marketing message from Apple. Let’s say we start from outside to the inside of the Golden Circle. Now the marketing message focus on the what and how only.

We make great computers! They are beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. They are beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. Want to buy one?

Let us change it by starting with WHY;

Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. And we happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?

Comparing these two ways of the marketing message, which one is more convincing? For me, it is the second one because of the strong and robust WHY. The anchor was the belief in challenging the status quo and thinking differently.” The message was clearly conveyed to the people. Individuals who have the same belief will buy their product because they feel connected to the product. Apple`s why is so strong it connects all the Apple users as well. People do not buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

The Golden Circle is a great tool reinforce your passion and making it a reality. You will only have one WHY. Your how and what can be adjusted to meet the need of your WHY. I discovered my WHY when I reflected on my key life event.

I failed quite a number exams during my university years. However, I hustle, and I earned the job in Shell. I made a mistake in my start of my career. However, I managed to find ways to recover my way up. I lost my father due to cancer. He had been my coach, mentor and most importantly a father. I had to step up my journey to move into manhood without him. When I connect the dots backward, I realized I survive the adversity. After every adversity, I learn and grow. I believe there is more to come! I need to learn to embrace it. That is where I learn my why.

My beloved late Father and I

My WHY;

My HOW:

I will put myself in difficult and challenging situations to grow individually and as a team. I would embrace failure and set back as I see it as the great opportunity. Failure is also a great teacher whereby required to be put under pressure to be a diamond.

My WHAT

I must take challenging tasks in my career as an engineer in the oil and gas industry.

I must step out of comfort zone to achieve my fitness goal to be an Elite Spartan Racer.

I must read books with great materials to reinforce and train my mind to be positive to fight the negative energy that the environment give.

I must learn to convey the inspirational message and share my WHY through blogging and the social network.

Based on the why you are able to make a better decision and steer direction in your career. It acts as a filter to make the right decision as a leader and as a person. It serves as a compass to point the right direction! It will inspire you to drive your passion into fulfillment.

I encourage you to discover your WHY. You can use the GOLDEN CIRCLE. You need to put yourself in different situations to discover your why. It requires clarity of WHY, the discipline of HOW and consistency of WHAT. All it takes is action!

Who is Marvin?

I am a husband, engineer, Spartan Racer, powerlifter and a blogger. The purpose of MarvinInspire is to inspire people to embrace the life obstacles. I believe the secret of winning outside, is to first to win inside. It is all about building a positive mindset to overcome the obstacles. Let's inspire people to embrace the obstacles to achieve greatness in life.